


Tales in Sand and Wind

by Linane



Series: The Sound of Silence [5]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Fluff, M/M, Summer, alternative universe, fili and kili are not related, pointless summer holidays thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 13,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane
Summary: Please note, this is a Sound of Silence Universe work - just a little 'as an aside' thing. Meanwhile,Heartbeatwill continue as per the usual.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isisanubis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isisanubis/gifts), [Toeinthewater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toeinthewater/gifts), [PetitMinou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetitMinou/gifts), [KLeonard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLeonard/gifts), [islandkate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandkate/gifts).



> Please note, this is a Sound of Silence Universe work - just a little 'as an aside' thing. Meanwhile, _Heartbeat_ will continue as per the usual.

 

 

The beach is over three miles long and close to half a mile wide at low tide.

It’s surrounded by the lush, rolling, green hills, which turn into dramatic cliffs on either end, with some tidal islands jutting out into the sea like the scales on the back of some giant dragon. Above it stretches the perfect blue sky with neat rows of fluffy white clouds, which Kili tells him is called mackerel sky.

There are some people, but nowhere near as many as Fili expected, and the sheer scale of the beach means that they look like nothing but ants dotted here and there in the distance.

“The trick,” Kili murmurs, changing the lens yet again to get the best out of the bright morning light and the stunning scenery, “is to know when to come here. There’s an air show going on in the next big town and I imagine most of the crowds today were headed that way.”

“Right,” Fili agrees, snapping a few quick shots of his own with his far less advanced camera, just for fun.

They’re here to refresh Kili’s portfolio of landscapes, which he will then turn into prints and canvas available through a number of local souvenir shops dotted around the country. It’s nowhere near as lucrative as his wildlife photography, but it is a steady source of income, which helps when he’s in between projects.

Fili didn’t need much convincing when his One suggested that they re-visit some of his favourite locations in the country and he hasn’t regretted it for a second, since they set off.

They start by following a coastal path which takes them right to the very end of the furthest scrap of land thrown into the sea, walking fast while the low tide makes it accessible for a brief period. They return along the cliff edges, where Kili insists on crawling far too close to the drop for Fili’s liking, making him roll his eyes and grab him by the belt loops of his trousers.

 _Click, click, click_ , Kili’s camera goes off constantly, and Fili allows the familiar sound to soothe him.

Next, they scale the rolling hills above the beach, their whole length, following a winding narrow path through the bracken and occasionally startling a sheep or two. Fili agrees with the sheep – he’d be startled too, if some lunatics invaded the crazy up-and-down landscape created just for him, instead of covering the same distance over the nice, flat sand.

Still, the pastures are dotted with little, purple flowers and some interesting ruins, which might have been here since the dawn of time or the 1950s. Whether anybody realises the significance of the pile of stones hidden by the tall bracken, Fili isn’t sure, but he takes the picture just in case, his mind pondering the people who might have once assembled them into a structure.

They’re going slower now, making sure that Kili can get all the best angles, while Fili carefully follows the sheep for a while to get a decent shot for himself. Kili laughs and calls him a _wildlife photographer_ for it, but Fili is too relaxed now to hold a grudge.

Admittedly, the hills provide the perfect context for the beach and give it a sense of a place, a character, which would otherwise be lost – that much is clear when Kili shows him a quick preview of some of the shots he likes.

 _Click, click, click_ , Kili’s camera goes off constantly, while Fili allows himself to simply sink into the moment, the silence interrupted only by the sound of the waves and some distant bleating.

They finally descend down onto the beach itself at its far end, following an incredibly steep, twisting path, passing about a dozen red-faced, panting people trying to climb it back up.

Fili sighs in delight, once his toes sink into the cool, wet sand, and his happiness must telegraph some sort of a signal to Kili because next thing he knows, his One is wrapping his arms around him and leaning in for slow, leisurely kiss.

“Enjoying yourself?” Kili’s eyes are smiling, even blurred as they are so close.

“I am, yes,” Fili smiles back. “You may take me to more places like this,” he allows graciously.

“You’ll be pleased to hear then, that I booked us into one of the few rooms the local pub offers, just for one night. I wanted to get some sunset and sunrise shots too.”

“Don’t know about the sunrise, but I can help you with the sunset shots. You’ll definitely need me for those.”

“Definitely,” Kili agrees, winks at him playfully, and dances off for more photography.

Fili feels charmed, by Kili’s love, by this place, by the sense of peace he’s found here. His mind briefly wonders why he never thought to come to a place like this in his homeless days and live on the beach; instantly he has a dozen very good reasons, but he banishes them all and allows himself to dream.

It’s too late now to reach the other tidal island, but Kili still waddles into the sea up to his knees, taking some beautiful shots of the rocks from near the water-level.

Fili, never one to miss an opportunity, takes some shots of Kili taking his shots in turn, all focussed and oblivious of the waves lapping at the edge of his shorts. Fili does, after all, have his own portfolio to replenish.

 _Click, click, click_ , Kili’s camera goes off constantly, and Fili’s goes off too, in a slower, steadier counter-rhythm. And if there’s a little bit of innocent splashing, aimed vaguely in the direction of Kili’s ass, then surely it must be an accident.

They carry on along the water’s edge hand in hand after that, strolling towards the middle of the beach where there are barely any people and where Kili will have the best chance for his final shots.

It’s slow going, since they’re both getting distracted often, and it’s now, more than at any other point so far, that they’re closest together – simply two lads fascinated by all sorts of incredible, sometimes disgusting finds that the sea chose to wash out onto the beach. Fili documents those meticulously, as the peculiar things he will remember later, while Kili, although from time to time tempted to shoot something half-buried in the sand, mostly focuses on the sea.

 _Click, click, click_ , Kili’s camera goes off constantly, and Fili obligingly moves out of his shot as he takes his spectacular panoramas, but is vindicated in the knowledge that the imprint of his footsteps will be captured forever within his art, one day, perhaps, to hang on somebody else’s wall.

Eventually they settle in a wide, empty spot, nothing but the sea, wind and a haphazard pile of their belongings, with towels stretched on the sand.

Fili heads straight for the water, while Kili rushes towards the few rotten remains of a ship wreck a little further inland, which he thinks will set off some of the fantastic scenery perfectly from this angle.

They will have the next few hours to simply be lazy and enjoy themselves – until the light changes and the sun starts to set, there aren’t that many new photos that Kili could take. So Fili takes his time, swimming and simply bobbing gently among the waves for a while, letting contentment wash over him like the currents.

He thinks he spots his Kili at one point, back by their towels, digging for his tripod in his backpack, retrieving it and running off somewhere again, but he leaves his One to do the thing he loves in peace.

It’s on his way out of the water, having allowed the sea to gently wash him ashore, that Fili picks up his first shell.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

It’s the colour that catches Fili’s eye first.

Yellow like straw, golden like honey. Kili likes those words, uses them often, to describe the colour of Fili’s hair.

He digs the shell out of the wet sand, two of them joined together actually, and pokes the sand out with his thumb. He takes his find back to his towel, a little keepsake, though he’s too old for picking shells.

Fili has the same hair colour as his mother. Eyes too, though for some reason what passes for his biological family today never liked her clear, uncompromising gaze. Two tiny little facts about his life Before, which Kili doesn’t know yet, it occurs to Fili. He’ll tell him, when his One returns.

The thought makes him smile – Kili _loves_ the little tidbits that Fili feeds him from time to time.

If he closes his eyes and listens to the waves, Fili can just about hear a child’s laughter echoing on the wind.

His laughter.

He thinks he can vaguely remember a trip to the beach, just once, when he was perhaps four or five. Everything was bright and brilliant back then, and Fili didn’t know about the Great Silence yet to come, much less about how profoundly it would affect him in not too distant future.

 _Don’t go in too deep!_ he thinks he can hear, the sound of his mother’s voice the one thing he’s fought to keep over all those years.

 _Jump, Fili, jump!_ his father’s voice, more words than the sound, as Fili was lifted by his arms to avoid the spray, practically squeaking with delight.

It was a good day and he found many treasures which he insisted on hauling back home when it was finally time to go.

Fili eyes the twin little shells in the palm of his hand.

He’s far too old for picking shells.

He scans the beach for a moment, but it doesn’t take him long to locate his Kili, a short distance away to his right, poking at a small, glistening pile of _something_ with a stick. His face reflects pure, morbid fascination and once he catches Fili’s gaze, he immediately gestures for Fili to join him.

Right.

Fili carefully places his shell in the corner of his towel, so it doesn’t get accidentally stepped on, tries to comb his wet hair back with his fingers and jogs up to his One.


	3. Chapter 3

__

 

_Tug, tug, tug, tug._

Kili’s hands are gentle yet firm in his hair, the sea salt making it coarser and harder to handle than it normally is. Kili brought a hairbrush – of course he did, considering his own wild and untamed tresses – and having wrangled his hair into a high, messy pony tail, he promptly shifted his attention to Fili’s.

Fili looked up from where he was peering at the sand, caught Kili’s eyes for a second, and then wordlessly shifted to make space on his towel.

Perhaps he’s vane, but he likes Kili playing with his hair. It feels like care and attention, so Fili simply tilts his head as required and relaxes into whatever it is that Kili wants to do.

_Tug, tug, tug, tug._

“These are some of the weirdest shells I’ve ever seen,” Fili points to the narrow, elongated shape right next to his towel, latest one to catch his attention. “I wasn’t even sure they _were_ shells at first. I thought perhaps they might be bits of seaweed or something.”

“Oh, razor clams.” A kiss to Fili’s temple, as Kili leans over his shoulder to see properly. “There are more here than I ever remember seeing in any single place before.”

This is true: the beach is littered, which is the other thing that made Fili assume it was vegetation. That and the fact that the biggest one he found was almost as long as his forearm.

_Tug, tug - tuuuug._

The ends of Fili’s hair must be tangled, but Kili catches the strands tightly in his grip and patiently brushes out just the tips, so as to not pull on Fili’s scalp.

“Are they edible?” Fili wonders.

“I think so, though I never tried them. They’d be bigger than normal clams. Please tell me that you have a hair elastic?”

Fili wordlessly removes a bright purple one from his wrist – Kili’s, his own sensibly coloured ones have all somehow mysteriously gone missing - and passes it to Kili.

A kiss to Fili’s shoulder in place of a thank you.

A few more tugs, a twist this way and that way and this way again and Kili finally seems satisfied. “There. That should at least keep it out of the way.”

Fili touches the arrangement on top of his head carefully. It’s a bun, though some of the more rebellious strands appear to be already slipping out of it, sliding back down to frame his face and teasing the nape of his neck with fleeting brushes.

“Thanks,” he smiles at Kili and pushes up a little to press a sounder kiss of his own to Kili’s lips.

Kili seems to approve and for a moment they’re just taking their time kissing leisurely, tasting salt and a bit more sand than they'd like.

“Now then. Shall we look up more info on razor clams for you?” Kili offers when they separate, stretching out on top of his own towel.

Fili picks up the shell he’s been eyeing for the last couple of minutes, takes in its perfect symmetry, down to the little wrinkle-like groves, where something must have pressed against it.

“Nah. I like it better when you tell me. Make something up, Kili.”

“Alright. Back in the Viking times they used to use those to scoop out their fallen enemies’ skulls!”

“Lovely. I wasn’t hungry anyway.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. This side-story is planned for 31 little, bite-sized installments, one for each day of July (though whether I'd get that far is another question). They're not very deep, not some brilliant, gripping writing, just some fluffy pointless rambling.
> 
> I don't need motivation writing it, my Muse is fully happy to play with his shells. I don't want to move on. But having had about 200 hits and 5 comments I feel no motivation to share it with anyone, except for the 5 people who seem to be interested. I am okay sharing it with only 5 people and no one else. I am okay sharing it with just 1 person, who will respond. I would message the next bits directly to the people who seem to want to have the creative dialogue with me, except I can't see an easy way of doing this on AO3 and it's a pain to go via Tumblr. 
> 
> Normally I'm on the other side of this conversation, but I'm only human too. Thank you for all those who commented, especially before I put on discontinue notice.
> 
> I'll post it for now, instead of messaging individually.

 

If Fili didn’t know any better, he’d think that some of the shells he finds look bruised.

That sounds suspiciously like something Kili might say, his mind wonderfully whimsical at times, his imagination wild. It’s one of the things that makes him so interesting.

Fili eyes his One, currently waddling through shallow water, with mild accusation.

Back to the shell.

He carefully strokes the shiny surface of the shell with his finger, as if he could soothe it that way, then tries to gently pry it open to make sure that it’s no longer occupied.

It isn’t and inside the colours seem even starker. Interesting. As if the deeper layers of the shell were displaying greater damage.

Shells exist for the simple purpose of protecting whatever vulnerable creature lives in them.

And bruises?

Are bruises designed to protect whatever vulnerable creature happens to be displaying them? A sort of _careful, you are damaging yourself_ message?

Fili automatically checks his arms, legs and torso. Nothing.

He can’t pinpoint exactly when the bruises he used to regularly sport disappeared from his skin, but it must have been a while back. Instead, he’s traded them for an uneven patch of skin on his arm, which reminds him that he’s now a slave to his love, to the point where he’d trade it for his life.

… He supposes the sea creatures that live inside shells are slaves to their sturdy protection too.

So maybe it’s just fine.

Maybe Fili’s love is his protection too.


	5. Chapter 5

 

“Kili, you should put on sunscreen. You’re getting burned on your back.”

Fili’s One, sprawled on top of his towel after the most recent wave of excitements, doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. “I don’t burn, Fili. I tan.”

Fili eyes the shell he’s just picked less than 3 feet away from their spot. He eyes Kili’s back. Then the shell again.

He squints.

“Is it perhaps possible that when you’re normally in sunny countries you’re wearing a tee and you’re constantly on the move, quite often shaded by the canopy, since it helps you stalk the animals all the better? As opposed to, you know, frying flat on the sand?”

“Well yes, but it’s not about that, it’s about my complexion. It just doesn’t burn. Don’t hate me for my beauty.” Kili mutters into his arms, serving as his pillow.

“Right.”

Fili carefully places his shell on top of Kili’s shuolder, then leans in to snap a quick photo with his phone.

“Wha -?”

“Here, compare and contrast,” Fili encourages helpfully, tossing his phone and the shell onto the towel next to Kili’s face.

By the time Kili is squinting at the screen, Fili is overturning a bottle of his own factor 50, painting an artistic swirl with the white emulsion all over Kili’s back from some height.

“Hey! Wait - _Oh_.” Kili stares at the shell, then at the photo, where his skin sports exactly the same shade. “Is that really –“

“Yup. Now lie still.” By now Fili has managed to swing his leg across and make himself perfectly comfortable, sitting on top of Kili’s ass. "I’d like to be able to sleep tonight, Kili,” Fili explains patiently, as his hands spread and massage the sunscreen into Kili’s back. “And for that to happen, you need to be able to sleep too. Without waking up every time anything other than air touches your back. It’s bad enough that – Kili?”

His One is not protesting. Seems wrong.

Annoyingly, Kili looks utterly peaceful, stretched out all for Fili, with his eyes closed and a smile playing on his lips. “Mmmm… s’ nice,” he rumbles in a low drawl.

Fili rolls his eyes, but smiles too, before lowering his lips to press a delicate kiss to Kili’s glowing shoulder.

Kili twitches.

“I brought aloe vera with me – we’ll put that on once we’re back. And then we’ll hope for the best, I guess.”

“So long as it’s those magical hands of yours, Fee, you can do whatever you like with me.”

“…Anything?”

“Mhm.”

Fili is nearly thrown off Kili’s back when his fingers first descend upon Kili’s exposed sides in a tickling spree, but it’s worth it just to see Kili giggle, squirm and try to defend himself despite his fatal mistake of leaving himself so open in the first place.


	6. Chapter 6

 

Treasures can be found in the most unlikely places.

Fili picks up a shell. It’s a mussel shell, buried deep in the sand so that at first only a small, black fragment of it is visible. He circles around it with his finger, gently pushing the sand aside, feeling like an archaeologist revealing an ancient artefact.

It’s the biggest mussel shell he’s found so far.

But that’s nothing compared to the moment when he flicks the shell over, having rinsed it briefly in the incoming tide.

His eyes register a painting. Tiny, meticulously detailed, magical in the atmosphere it exudes – it’s as if the sea itself was captured inside the shell forever. It's all warm blues, pearly whites, misty greys and stark, dark navy like brewing storms.

White fluffy clouds dominate the picture, sailing lazily across a sky so blue as one would only expect in fairy tales, and merging seamlessly into the curls of mist visible on the right. Below, a darker outline of distant shores is embraced and caressed by a fine line of white, frothy waves, low-lying hills and dramatic cliffs behind them which should, by rights, house hidden pirate coves. Closer still a straight or perhaps a narrow bay, shimmering with the moonlight reflected upon its surface in a thousand brushstrokes. Finally, in the foreground, a dark silhouette of the vegetation covering the banks overlooking the scene.

It's calm, yet charged with restless energy, like it might move, if only Fili was to tilt the shell and allow the light to paint it anew. The waves might crash against the shoreline, the leaves rustle in the breeze, for the sea is never still, never the same, and yet it is, without a doubt, completely unchanging and eternal.

Perhaps there is a lesson there, Fili thinks, carefully adding the shell to his collection, a lesson about how one might re-invent themselves and adapt, and yet remain true to who they are.


	7. Chapter 7

 

"There were once two lovers" Fili murmurs, placing the shell, still glistening with water, gently in the sand next to his One.

Kili's eyes blink open, squinting against the bright sun, shaded by his long, dark lashes. He's tired himself out now and if Fili was to leave him in peace, he'd soon be napping on top his towel.

But Fili is greedy, drunk on happiness that filled his day so far and he doesn't want it to end.

"They were two stars, actually" Fili adds thoughtfully, trying to piece together the story curling lazily in his mind. "It was said that they were the brightest in all of the night sky, bright with the love they carried in their hearts. But the moon was jealous of their affection and cruelly placed them on the opposite ends of the world."

"He sounds like a right asshole," Kili comments, fingers toying aimlessly with the shell he's been presented with, smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He's always needed to keep his hands busy.

"Shhhhh, don't interrupt. You want to hear my story or not?" Fili huffs, but even to his own ears it hardly sounds like a threat. "The two lovers wanted to be together so much that soon they started a slow, arduous journey across the night sky towards each other. Such journeys are not easy, you understand," Fili pokes his One gently in the ribs, making his eyes snap open once more. "It takes incredible effort to move a star even a little bit."

"I wasn't -"

"Shhhhh," Fili repeats, satisfied that he still has a captive audience. "Such was their love and longing, that all the other stars they passed dimmed in their honour, until their light was all absorbed, leaving twin trails in the sky where no light shone at all."

"I hope they get a happy ending."

"Patience. We're at the dramatic bit now. The two lovers fought with all they had, every ounce of their life's energy. But the time was running out and the night started brightening up, first with delicate purples, pinks, oranges and brilliant yellows, until there was hardly any darkness left to shine against. They were so close now, almost able to reach out and touch each other, determined to be together once more, even if there was nothing left of them in the end, even if they had no time left together."

Kili's eyes are trained on his own now, dark and unblinking, caught up in the trap of Fili's words.

"They finally met just where the sky meets the land on the horizon, for the fleetest, tiniest moment, just a touch, a brush of fingers," Fili's fingertips meet Kili's over the smooth surface of the shell. "Then they flickered out of existence, having used all their light, and their story came to a close."

"Bullshit," Kili breathes, enthralled.

Fili smiles. "The second their fingers touched, their love exploded in one final brilliant flurry of sparks. The sparks caught and ignited the sun, much brighter and bigger than any star, or even the moon itself. Finally, they were re-united and they would forever travel across the sky together now, radiating warmth and light at everything that lives. Their story came to a close. And a new story began."

Kili lets out a slow breath. "I love you," he whispers, soft, warm and full of admiration.

"I love you too."


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

“This one’s for you.” Fili presents the shell to Kili on top of his outstretched palm.

It’s the prettiest shell he’s managed to find so far: pale, with golden highlights, spiral in shape, with interesting little barnacles tucked in its groves. Fili thinks it might have belonged to a whelk once upon a time, but his knowledge of shell types is only vague at best.

“Awww, thank you!” Kili grins, getting up to his feet and rummaging in the back pocket of his swimming trunks for a moment. “Trade me?”

In the palm of his hand sits a shell near-identical in both the shape and size.

Fili stares. “How did you -?”

Kili leans in for a gentle little kiss, swapping the shells between their hands. “Oh, Fili. Your heart may be quiet, but it loves very loudly,” he whispers. “If you had _half_ the shell, you’d give me a quarter. So I’ve been doing some beach combing of my own.”

Fili doesn’t know what to say, faced with another happy smile, honest eyes full of sun and lips tasting of salt. Eventually he huffs. “Can’t I ever just spoil you?!”

He didn’t think it possible, but Kili’s delighted grin grows even wider.

“I thought you’d never ask!” Kili points to the few buildings tucked on top of the cliffs near the start of the path down to the beach. “They have ice cream there.”

Fili squints. It must be at least a mile and a half, but he did offer. “Alright. What flavour would you like?”

“Raspberry? Or straciatella. And if they don’t have either, then anything with nuts.”

Fili smiles and steals another quick kiss. Kili’s taste in ice cream seems as varied and wonderfully unpredictable as the rest of him. “Right. Be back in a bit then.”

He makes it perhaps five steps, before –

“Fee?”

He turns around, tilting his head in question.

“Can I just… come with you?” His One looks a tiny bit hesitant and entirely forlorn, standing by himself among their towels and gear.

“You sure? It’s a long way up.”

“And a long way down. It’d be easier to just eat it up there. Together.”

Fili can hardly argue with _that_ logic. Instead he pads back to help pack their stuff, but finds himself severely hampered by an armful of an enthusiastic Kili.

“But we’re coming back, right?” he checks, not quite finished with his shells.

“Obviously. You like it down here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”


	9. Chapter 9

 

The shell is completely white and polished perfectly smooth by the water and sand, like a chip off an alabaster statue.

How is it that some shells end up pristine white, while others are covered in sea weed and colourful? Does it depend on where the shell lives within the oceans? Or what creature happens to inhabit it? Is it because this shell has been particularly good and saintly? Isn’t white supposed to be colour of innocence and purity?

For Fili, if someone ever did one of those association tests on him, white is the colour of bones and broken teeth.

White is the colour of cocaine.

White is the colour of bandages they wrapped tight around his arm, the colour of starched hospital pillows, and antibiotic and nanite pills he was given.

White is…

Fili looks up for a moment, watches Kili yelp and do a funny little dance nearby, as he tries to get his warm body used to the cold water of the sea. He considers.

He’s sitting directly on the sand, letting the surf play tag with his toes, enjoying the light breeze and feeling distinctly _happy_. It’s an oddly familiar feeling nowadays, featuring much more heavily in Fili’s life than bones and cocaine.

He places the shell on top of his knee, so it won’t be carried away by the sea again, then wraps his arms around his shins, closes his eyes and simply listens to the waves and Kili’s splashing for a while.

Fili’s toothbrush is white (Kili’s is purple).

The pages of his journal are white, though lined, so maybe that doesn’t count.

Dis’ favourite flowers are white (narcissuses).

White are little stacks of photography paper they keep for when Kili decides to develop some of his better shots.

And Fili’s bath robe, the one that Kili got him for Christmas last year – perhaps the most luxurious, pleasurable and comfortable thing he’s ever touched.

Fili’s life captured in a few little items that help him define _home_ every day.

But none of those things have strong enough connotations in Fili’s mind to feel synonymous with the colour.

In the end it’s back to the teeth.

Kili’s smiles are white. Blinding and offered freely, frequently. Powerful with the swell of emotion inside of Fili’s chest which they generate, like some knee-jerk response.

It’s an improvement on his original associations, Fili decides.

Besides, what’s the fun in pure, perfect things anyway?


	10. Chapter 10

 

Fili watches his One emerge from the sea like some kind of ancient God. He's all shifting muscles, glittering skin, coarse dark hair made even darker and slick against his chest with water. His face is schooled into an impressive scowl, as if he'd come to smite the misbehaving mortals, though Fili knows that it's merely him trying to catch his breath.

Kili always did have a flare for dramatics, though it's never been his own conscious choice to captivate the eye the way he does.

To Fili though Kili is most often easy friendship of worn t-shirts, goofy giggles and quiet attention which people wouldn't suspect of him. All those things that the mere mortals don’t get to see or know about him: his quirks, his battles, his familiarity. Not quite the Poseidon arisen then; rather his best friend, the man he loves and cares for more than himself.

So he thinks it only fair to give himself a moment to consciously appreciate Kili's trim, tight body while he's got the chance: broad chest, dark looks, hips that sway when he walks, but still in Fili's hands.

"Earth to Fili, earth to Fili. Do you read me?" Kili waves a hand in front of Fili's eyes and then proceeds to wring his hair right over Fili's perfectly toasty, sun-warmed shins.

"Watch it!" Fili hisses, retreating a fraction just in case.

"There you are!" The little shit flashes him a bright grin as if he hasn't just stood there for a good couple of minutes, letting himself be thoroughly ogled.

"I was just thinking," Fili tries weakly, fully aware that he doesn’t sound particularly convincing.

"Mhm, I could see that," Kili grins and swoops down to his towel. "Oh, I brought you something!" he chirps next, retrieving something from his pocket.

The shell, if it was intact, would have been the biggest shell in Fili’s collection.

“I spotted it half-buried in the sand at the bottom, and it looked _perfect_ , the way it was sticking out, but when I dived in for it, it turned out to be only the top half,” Kili glares at the shell, in a way that would have made any potential inhabitant feel deeply ashamed about having lost half their home.

Fili gives him a loop-sided grin, before taking the shell from his hands and turning it around to peer at the underside.

The shell is beautiful. It’s only because it’s a fragment, that Fili gets the chance to glimpse at the structure inside, which perhaps no other living creature ever saw up until now. It’s fascinating.

“The golden spiral,” he whispers reverently, tracing the jagged edges with his fingertips. “It’s mind-boggling how nature can be so incredibly chaotic and spontaneous, and yet it also comes up with these utterly perfect forms, which we only instinctively recognise as ideal.”

“Or perhaps _everything_ in nature is ideal, only we’re not able to appreciate it, because we lack the enormous frame of reference to understand the optimal conditions?” Kili says, tilting his head in one of those magical moments when he’s far more clever and insightful than people expect him to be. “You see a shell and you _like_ the expanding curve, because it feels right. It’s small enough for you to see all of it, or, well, as much of it as we have, in this case. But I’ve seen bird’s feathers spread out so that what is basically a pile of fluff allows then the gift of flight. I’ve seen new-born fawn which came ready made with such a perfect distribution of spots that I nearly tripped over it, just sitting in the tall grass, completely invisible. You take that fawn out of his meadow and put him in a zoo and he looks about as camouflaged as the holo-billboards. But once upon a time he had his meadow, had his spots and the nature got it right.”

Fili stares at him in open admiration, utterly enchanted by the way Kili perceives the world, the way it makes him take his photographs and work out his own opinions about life. It’s the same observant streak that Kili must have once applied to Fili.

And he must have seen… _something_. Probably not perfection, but maybe something right for him. Presumably, he sees it still.

“Then again,” Kili picks up casually, yawning and stretching for a moment, before lowering himself to sprawl comfortably on top of his towel. “It is just as likely that the snail, or clam, or whatever –“

“Mollusk,” Fili supplies helpfully.

“- that a mollusk, just lived in one of those, going about his mollusk-y business, eating his whatever –“

“Plankton and algae.”

“- eating his algae, growing cheerfully, and every now and again he’d look back at his home and go: ‘it’s perfect in every respect, except I want it a bit bigger.’ And then he’d grow himself another bit of his shell. It’s either one or the other. We may never know.”

Aaaaand he’s back.

Fili sighs. Kili never chooses to display either one of his many varied facets for very long. He’s about as changeable as the sea and Fili can’t help but love him for it all the more.


	11. Chapter 11

 

Mussel shells are Fili’s absolute favourite.

They’re only simple, compared to some of the other shells he finds, but he absolutely loves their slick, dark colours, glistening in the sun like polished gems. They look like the cosmos, vast, dark, but upon closer inspection, painted in an array of navy, purples and lighter steel and cornflower blues. There is depth in the colour somehow, and rays of light streaking through it, and even the few stray grains of sand only serve to look like specks of distant stars, dotted among the brilliant galaxies.

Underneath the fine veneer of colour, mussel shells seem to be made entirely out of the mother of pearl, white and magical, and Fili wonders if perhaps in some distant, ancient times they might have been ground up into a fine powder for decoration or medicine.

They look… distinguished, for a shell. Like instead of the plain, unassuming oysters, it’s the mussels that should hold the pearls inside them.

Fili picks another one and another and feels like he’s found something precious, a proper treasure which everyone else seems to overlook.

And yet, they’re like the cinderellas of the shell world – if allowed to dry, they completely lose the spark of their magic.

So Fili spends minutes and hours, flicking water on them, content to just sit on the edge of the surf and watch the sun glinting off their dark coats.

Somehow, it makes him happy.

Perhaps it’s the sheer beauty itself, perhaps it’s the ability to spot it where others miss it, or perhaps it’s that tiny voice in the back of his head, the one he used to hear often, when he was at his most desperate. A voice that all people have in varying degrees: an idea that one day fortune might just smile upon them and without any effort whatsoever, they might just be _lucky_ enough to find a treasure, or win the lottery, have an investment work out, or –

Fili looks up when Kili deposits yet another mussel shell on top of his knee, his sixth one, and wordlessly flops down to the sand next to him. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t interfere, doesn’t seem to _want_ anything, except to share in Fili’s silence and his presence.

Kili drops his head to rest on top of Fili’s shoulder, eyes relaxed on the sea before them, and Fili feels just a tiny bit happier, more _fortunate_ than a moment ago.


	12. Chapter 12

 

Do shells have Ones?

Perhaps once upon a time all shells used to wander the seas and oceans alone, trying to hook up with other shells to see if their edges might fit. Perhaps some shells, the ones Fili now finds with broken edges, thought they found their One and ended up chipping away bits of themselves to match whatever frame they felt they had to have. This could have gone on for millennia – waves and tides full of poor, single shells, knocking against each other until the world crushed them and turned them into chalk.

And perhaps one day God, or whatever greater power gets to decide such things, got pissed off at how it all wasn’t working. He created the shells just right and they kept sending all the right signals, but their shell-Ones never listened, too pre-occupied searching for their own match.

Perhaps it was God who fixed it as well.

“Listen, little shell,” He might have said, “I will attach you to this here buddy of yours so you won’t get separated. He’ll be good for you, so try to get along and just roll with it.”

Fili’s own belief in one’s power to dictate their own fate bristles against the sentiment.

But it is possible, he supposes, that all things alive do have their One, and that they too had to learn how to find them.

Perhaps the seagulls sail the winds and steal people’s chips without the care in the world because they know, crystal-clear, that one day they’ll meet Frank or Harriet and they’ll spend the rest of their natural lives raiding people’s bin bags together. Perhaps they have learned already.

And perhaps humans, who like to believe themselves burdened with free will, were simply the last species on the planet to experience such change. After all, we had to develop our maths, our computers and their connectivity, just to be able to confirm to ourselves, with absolute certainty, that for the world to make sense there must be someone out there just for us. That took a lot of time – we’re too clever for our own good.

Fili imagines that for the little shells, being attached to another might have been about as much of a world-changing event as, say, a loss of one’s voice might be.

He looks up from where he’s peering at his little find in the sand to scan the beach for Kili, so he might share his latest theory.

The other half of Fili’s shell is climbing a cliff. Without any safety ropes and holding a spare lens with his chin, a good 4 meters above the sand and by the looks of things aiming for a small cave another 3 meters up.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Fili growls and takes off running, his shell long forgotten in the sand.


	13. Chapter 13

 

The shell is extraordinary, for looking like it’s made entirely out of polished metal.

Fili pokes at it, just to double check that it isn’t, his mind conjuring an absurd vision of little droids, hidden at the bottom of the ocean, working at an assembly line to produce high-quality, metal shells, which are then released out into the sea to get bumped and scuffed appropriately, so they resemble the real deal.

Ridiculous.

And yet, perhaps it’s not as impossible as it seems.

Artificial grass has been a thing since long before either Fili or Kili have been born, even though grass seeds are much cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

Artificial blood has existed for around 60 years now and has saved countless lives during the unrest and outright wars in the days directly after the Great Silence.

Since around 2040s it has become more convenient to replace a broken bone with an exact 3D replica printout than wait for the original to grow back together. Admittedly it’s a procedure primarily endorsed by the rich and privileged, but it reduces healing time from 6 weeks to less than 2, and leaves the new bone completely shatter-proof.

Fili would much rather keep all his original bits, thank you very much, but it’s a practice common enough that he’s known a Voiceless, once a prominent banker gone bankrupt, who had two of his leg bones replaced after a skiing incident.

At the end of the day, Fili can sort of understand the medical applications of such technologies – God knows he’s grateful for the nanites enclosed in the mini epi-pen dangling from his wrist, which might one day save Kili’s life.

But it’s the senseless replicas of perfectly serviceable and widely available originals that annoy him the most.

Like pre-peeled bananas in plastic packaging. Or robo-cats and dogs when there are scores of real pets waiting for adoption, capable of true loyalty and affection instead of pre-programmed protocols. Or holo rainbow projectors.

Pointless.

These things make Fili angry. Though fortunately, between Dis’ country-living lifestyle and Kili’s own love of nature, there is not a chance that any of those things will ever feature in Fili’s life.

He picks up the shell, turns it in his fingers and is re-assured by its usual light weight. Yes, it does look like a fantastical meld of burnished bronze, aluminium and copper, but it only makes it more interesting and beautiful. He knows better than most not to judge things based on their appearances.

Fili hopes he will never live to see the day when artificial shells are available in rainbow colours, vacuum packed, from a vending machine, but just in case, he decides to add the shell to his collection and keep it safe.

As artefacts. For future reference.


	14. Chapter 14

 

There’s a trail in the sand.

A mysterious little grove, as if drawn by a child using a stick, except of course there are no children, or sticks around. It meanders this way and that, without any sense or reason, sometimes doubling back upon itself, and covering a good couple of meters.

Fili, obviously, follows it.

At the end of the trail he finds a shell. Tiny, stripy, swirly one, enterprisingly making its way across the beach, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Fili, obviously, picks it up.

He finds it occupied, by something that may or may not be some kind of a winkle, retreating hastily once exposed.

“And now you’ve pissed off a shell,” Kili points out, materialising behind him from god-knows-where.

A brief flash of guilt at having done something wrong, even though Kili probably meant it as a joke. He’s still working on that particular reaction.

Fili didn’t mean to piss off anything. He’d try to apologise, but the shell isn’t his One, and Fili has no words. He’s about to put it back down where he found it, when it occurs to him that it’s a hell of a big beach and only a tiny, little shell.

So instead he places it in the palm of his hand, just for now, leaving it alone to see if it will try to wander his skin, curious about just how it moves.

“Do you think it’s lost?”

“Or drunk,” Kili tilts his head, taking in the meandering, sometimes zigzagging trail.

“I think it’s lost. Where do you think it might be headed?”

Kili only shrugs, entirely unhelpful.

The shell, obviously, tries to play dead.

“Right. Well, maybe let’s just take it to the water.”

“But what if it drowns?!”

“It’s a water snail. Winkle. Thing.” Fili blinks at his One. “How do you suppose it got here in the first place?”

Kili doesn’t look convinced, so for a moment they both eye the shell as if it could just give them the answer.

And then Kili blinks and Fili can practically see the light bulb go off in his head. “Hang on, I think I’ve seen these before! Wait here!” And with that he’s off, running back to their towels.

Fili’s eyes shift back to the shell, feeling it tentatively feel the skin of his palm. He tilts his head and tries to focus. It only rarely works, and only if Fili is in the right frame of mind:

“I used to be lost too,” Fili tells Kili, but of course only the shell might hear him now, as he starts to slowly stroll back towards their camp in Kili’s footsteps. “I suppose if someone mapped out my movements across the city, it wouldn’t look too dissimilar to –“

He stumbles, momentarily mute, because his focus shifted.

“- to the shell’s sand trail. Except nobody cared, of course. Though… a few years ago there was an idea to collar the Voiceless and track their movements. Supposedly to understand what makes us move across the city and try to provide the same things locally, though in reality it was much more about control. I mean, it’s not rocket science, really, not if anyone cared to spend 5 minutes around the Voiceless. Food, shelter, safety. Warmth, in the winter. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work out.”

Kili looks up at him from where he’s peering at his camera, flicking through the photos he’s taken earlier. There’s a momentary flash of pride in his eyes, when he realises that Fili is practicing his third party communication techniques and Fili gives him a quiet little smile in response.

“And then you found me. And offered me a –“

“A rock.”

“I was going for ‘a place in your heart’, but sure.”

“No, I mean your shell. It’s looking for a rock.”

Fili arches his eyebrow in question, then carefully lowers himself to the towel next to Kili, feeling intrigued.

“It’s that other tidal island we couldn’t quite get too,” Kili explains, passing him his camera, so Fili can view the photos on the screen. “I took some shots of the rocks, remember? And they were covered in those.”

Indeed, the shot shows a close up of a boulder barely above the water surface, covered in a multitude of the spiral shell tips like a little sea forest.

“It probably feeds on the nutrients deposited on the rock’s surface,” Fili deduces. “But the nearest rocks are…”

“The tidal island,” Kili nods towards the little outcrop visible in the distance, half a beach away.

“Right. Well, it would be much faster if I just carried it there. You know, since I was the one to piss it off.”

Kili only grins at him, before pulling him down for a sound kiss. “Go,” he murmurs against Fili’s lips. “And try not to stop for every single shell along the way. I’d like to see you again sometime this century.”

Fili, obviously, kicks up a little sand at him for his cheek.

He doesn’t stop for _every single_ shell along the way, just the particularly pretty ones. But he does find 5 other little wandering shells and 4 empty ones, which appear to have been abandoned by their occupants, and which will make an excellent addition to his little collection.


	15. Chapter 15

 

Sea snail’s shells are the ones that fill Fili’s mind with thoughts of home and protection. Of course all shells fulfil that function to a degree, but it’s the _snails_ that little boys and girls tend to draw, giving their shells extra windows and chimneys and colourful stripes.

Fili traces the perfect spiral, double-checking that the shell is indeed abandoned and noting how the sea snails seem to build their homes extra sturdy and thick, compared to their land-inhabiting cousins.

They’d have to, if they wanted to survive. They live in a harsher world.

Fili remembers the times when under passes, entryways, sometimes a patched up tent or even just a big umbrella wrapped in a blanket used to be his only home and protection. He still can’t help it but automatically assess things as potential shelters.

Sometimes when it rains Kili pushes him into the nearest café, buys them a hot drink and simply settles down to wait it out. There’s a specific _feeling_ Fili gets at such times, one he doesn’t have a word for, but it’s similar to marvel, that he can be _inside_ and all those people passing in front of the windows have to stay _outside_ , where it’s all cold and windy and nasty.

He remembers that very first time when there was a storm and he asked to sleep in Kili’s bed. It’s the same feeling, or lack of it, that in large part drove him to do it. There were thick, brick walls around him, a roof, windows were closed, and yet none of it seemed sturdy enough, permanent enough to be able to ensure that howling wind and lightening wouldn’t invade Fili’s space, Fili’s dreams.

It was the warmth of Kili’s mattress and duvet, when he slipped out of them for Fili, that seemed much better suited as shelters and Kili’s carelessly thrown arms around him became Fili’s ramparts.

He has of course learned since that a house and a home are two very different things and he values them both in their own right.

He’s trained himself to trust and feel safe in a home, which tends to be wherever Kili’s laughter lives and his snores, and his ever-curious hands. He wakes up in a circular tent dangling from a low mahogany tree (hanging tents have been Kili’s absolute favourite since forever, and have quickly grown to be Fili’s favourites too), unzips the entry and feels a sense of awe that his home decided to wander into such a spectacular location as the tropical jungle last night.

But there is still a different kind of a sense of value when it comes to houses – walls, ceilings, dry floors, radiators and all – whether it’s their small, but well-loved flat, a mud hut around Timbuktu, an art-deco style tenement in Prague or an eco-tree cabin in Finland.

It’s about boundaries, Fili thinks, like saying _this is Fili’s space, for his things and loved ones to stay in, which will be entirely separate from all those other spaces he’s passed through_. A place to return to. A place to defend, if need be.

He doesn’t think the sentiment will ever go away, or that he will ever stop mentally mapping out the nearest safe spot in case of an emergency, but he’s learned not to resist it. It’s coming from a place of warmth and feeling; a place Fili likes.

He peers at the little round shell, which he’s been turning around in his fingers for the past couple of minutes.

He hopes the snail felt safe in this shell. If it’s been used by another creature, a hermit crab perhaps, he hopes that it found a better one to move into.

Whatever it was, he hopes, at least for a time, it had a place it could call home.


	16. Chapter 16

 

“If shells had superheroes, this would be the one.” Kili declares, picking through Fili’s sizeable by now collection and singling out one medium-sized shell with distinct black and white stripes.

He startles somewhat at the sound of Fili’s laughter, watching him with wide eyes and obvious delight on his face.

Fili’s eyes soften, but it’s just such a ridiculous notion –

Kili, of course, is instantly on the case, having identified a way to get what he wants most of all.

“Captain Shelley. There to protect the helpless and those tangled in the murky tentacles of the sea weed!”

Fili snorts again, shaking his head at his ridiculous One.

“Surely, _Captain Stripey_ , would be a more appropriate name,” he prods, because it’s fun to tease Kili and see just how confused he’ll manage to get himself among his various crazy ideas.

“That’s what his enemies call him. But it’s very rude to judge a shell by its colour, you know.”

“He has enemies? Such as what?!” Fili arches an eyebrow.

Kili throws a panicked look in the direction of the sea. “W-well. There are, ah… fish. Um. Bad fish, who prey on the… mollies –“

“Molluscs,” Fili corrects gently, mirth in his voice.

“He calls them mollies. You know, like… um, civvies…?”

“Right.”

“And then there’s the sea itself, can be very dangerous for little mollies during the storm. And ah –“

Kili seems to be struggling somewhat by now, so Fili decides to throw him a metaphorical bone. “What’s his super power?”

“The Sonic Snap,” Kili decides instantly, looking immensely pleased with himself. “I know technically it's something certain species of shrimp do, but I’ve always thought it was incredibly cool. The way it compresses the water to stun its prey. Did you know that it causes enough of a noise that it can actually disrupt the sonar?”

Kili looks so incredibly fascinated that Fili is forced to kiss him, simply because of the sudden influx of affection he feels.

Kili sinks into the kiss, even deepens it for a moment, before parting just enough to grin against Fili’s lips and whisper conspiratorially: “Nobody knows the true identity of the heroic mollusc that hides within the stripy shell. But what they _do_ know is that when the time comes, Captain Shelley will be there to protect their city!”

Fili explodes in a fresh wave of what is most definitely _not_ giggles, and pulls this ridiculous idiot he loves closer, to rest their foreheads together as they catch their breath.


	17. Chapter 17

 

The absolute most beautiful shell in Fili’s collection comes paid for in blood.

They’re playing beach ball in the shallow water when Fili returns a serve with a bit more oompf than he intends to, forcing Kili to rush backwards to try and save himself a point.

He almost makes it, before there’s a cry, a moment of frantic flailing and then Kili disappears under water.

“Kili!” Fili is instantly on the move, worry spiking out of control, but by the time he waddles close enough, his One re-surfaces spluttering and flapping his arms to try and stay the right way up. “Are you okay? What happened?!”

They grab onto each other, Kili’s hand closing around Fili’s as soon as it’s within his reach and it’s almost entirely Fili’s strength that pulls him back to his feet.

“Ow,” Kili winces, leaning into him for support. “There was a… rock. A boulder. Under water. Very slippery. I think it bit me.”

“Can you walk?” Fili wraps his arm around him to help stabilise him. He’ll carry him out of the water if he needs to.

“Yeah,” Kili gives him a shaky smile, then starts slowly limping back to the shore. “I’m sure it’s nothing; just stings. Mostly it’s my dignity that I’m not sure will ever recover again.”

Fili presses a kiss to his wet and tangled hair, taking on some of Kili’s weight once they reach the sand. “I’ve seen you dance to Berry Z while brushing your teeth, Kili. Trust me, this doesn’t even make the top 10 of your less dignified moments,” he points out, but it sounds a bit too raw, even to himself, to be genuinely funny.

Kili, of course, sees right through it. “Honestly Fili, I’m okay,” he insists, gingerly lowering himself to sit down. “I was just a bit surprised –“

“You’re bleeding all over your towel,” Fili points out calmly.

“I - what?! Oh. That would explain the sting.”

The back and outer side of Kili’s calf sports several long, but shallow cuts and scrapes near his ankle, complete with bits of the sea bed still embedded in it, most of it looking like dark shell fragments.

“The rock must have been covered in mussels. Here, let me -” Fili gently cradles his One’s ankle and the underside of his knee, helping him shift his leg to rest his heel on top of Fili’s knee, where he can take a closer look. “I think when you tripped over you must have slid with some force over their slippery, sharp edges. And some of them decided to, um, hitch a ride. Can you move your foot? Does your ankle hurt at all?”

“It's fine, it's not broken, or I wouldn't have made it this far,” Kili gives him another smile and this time it looks a bit more genuine. He wiggles his foot to illustrate his point. “Think you can sort it out for me, doctor I'm-too-hot-for-my-shirt?”

Fili looks up from where he's carefully picking a strand of sea weed of Kili's skin. “It needs an antiseptic, Kee. And a bit of a dressing –“

Kili takes one look at the cliffs visible in the distance and then transfers his incredulous gaze to Fili.

 _He doesn't want the fuss,_ Fili thinks instinctively, glancing at the hills as well. _He trusts me, and he doesn't want other people touching his leg._ It's an odd mix of protectiveness and the need to accommodate Kili that swells inside his chest, which Fili imagines might normally exist between siblings.

“I'll bleed to death before I even make it to that stupid path, never mind actually climbing it!” Kili declares dramatically, leaning back on his elbows and planting his foot in Fili's lap more firmly for emphasis.

It's not the best decision, but faced with the weight of Kili's stare it's the only one Fili is capable of.

“Alright, but I'm giving it a proper clean out when we get back in. Deal?”

“Deal.” Kili nods solemnly.

Fili presses a gentle kiss to the top of Kili's knee and runs a soothing hand over the uninjured side of his calf. “Try to stay still,” he murmurs. “This will hurt a little.”

Fortunately, it seems to be a classic case of 'it looks worse than it is'. Fili carefully grasps the individual pieces of shell by their edges and dislodges them one by one, occasionally using his thumb to brush the smaller bits out of the scrapes. He's thorough, but methodical - it's not the first injury he’s had to address without proper medical supplies.

Kili for his part pulls an impressive array of faces, hisses once or twice, but for most part let's him do what he needs to do.

Once he's done, Fili reaches for his water bottle and pours all of it, slowly, over the injury, using several tissues to clear the last of the sand grains out. Finally, he uses the last tissue to gently dab the whole area dry, satisfied when the blood flow seems to be reduced to lazy beading here and there.

Kili takes a deep breath and flops down flat onto his towel.

“I think we've managed to save the leg,” Fili quips tentatively.

“I always knew your hands were magic, Fee,” comes from the top of the towel, where Kili is giving him a considering look.

“At least you picked some really pretty shells to get stabbed with,” Fili smiles, picking up a single mussel shell, one of the first ones he’s removed, which has miraculously survived in one piece. It sports beautiful streaks of purple interspersed with white as if it was painted in soft strokes and then washed down with water. He turns it thoughtfully in his fingers, frowning at the rounded edge encrusted with blood and sand.

“You should keep that. As a memento of my triumph over death,” Kili tells him, rolling to his side, so he can face Fili properly and rest his injured leg on top of the other.

"I'm sorry. It was my serve that made you stumble on that rock," Fili says quietly, avoiding his eyes.

“Don’t be silly. ’Tis but a scratch. Besides, you kissed it better, so it must be alright.”

He looks so genuine in his affection, so unconditionally loving and admiring that Fili momentarily doesn’t know what to say.

The kiss is absolutely necessary, as the only adequate response Fili knows. “Going by that logic,” he whispers in a brief interlude, “I should kiss it again. Minimalize the risk of infection…”

“Yes, Fili. Yes, you should.”


	18. Chapter 18

 

“It’s a tiny, teenie, little sand whale,” Kili declares, poking at the shell fragment before his eyes aimlessly.

He looks utterly relaxed, with his chin pillowed on top of his folded forearms, his body stretched out, feet waving about cheerfully in the air.

Next to him Fili has assumed a near-identical position, only his legs are resting flat, toes idly digging a little hole in the sand behind him.

“It does look a bit like a half-submerged orca, doesn’t it?” Fili agrees, tilting his head.

They’re too full of lunch just now to go swimming or indeed, move much, so instead Kili has demanded a complete review of Fili’s entire shell collection, one by one, and he’s amusing himself with coming up with silly little backstories for each.

Fili demanded photos of each shell in turn, so he might tuck them in between the pages of his journal when they’re back home.

It’s going well: they have set up a studio (Kili’s camera with a macro lens on sitting on the edge of his towel) a little display area within an easy reach of both (they had to move their towels twice before Kili was finally satisfied with sun’s position relative to his subjects) and Fili is using a little bit of their precious drinking water to clean off the more sandy specimens or those that dried in the sun.

Kili takes the shot, and then digs three of his fingers into the sand and pushes the shell back to Fili on a little grainy wave he’s just created, complete with the whooshing sound effect of his own making.

“Imagine a pod of those all lining up to create a tiny sand dune and ambush some dropped crisp or an M&M,” he says.

Fili snorts, somehow swept up in the wave of silliness and having a great time of it. “I can see them regularly washing up on people’s towels, having to be gently rolled back off. Actually, knowing orcas, they’d probably do it on purpose, look pitiful if spotted, and then grab the nearest sandwich and haul the whole thing back under the sand.”

Kili peers at him with quiet pride. “They totally would too. Cheeky panda-whales,” he murmurs, then randomly decides to kiss Fili’s elbow, because it’s the closest part of him within Kili’s range.

It would be a lie to say that Fili is impervious to the little bit of praise implied – one of the first things he’s learned about Kili in his professional capacity is just how knowledgeable he is about the animals and plants he photographs.

Fili has been resolved to catch up with him ever since.

Except while Fili’s knowledge comes from a wealth of nature documentaries he watches with utter fascination, and books he gets lost in, Kili’s knowledge is more… unorthodox. Hands-on, so to speak.

“Wear blue. Tanzania geckos like blue.” Kili might randomly tell him before they set off, and a few hours later Fili will find himself faced with three, eyeing him speculatively from close distance, while Kili snaps a photo after photo.

Fili looks at his One, patiently awaiting his next subject, taking his time studying Fili in turn.

“Woosh,” Kili repeats, waving his hand for emphasis, succeeding in making Fili smile again, and momentarily making him imagine the two of them trying to photograph pods of little sand whales, baiting them with sandwiches.

“Alright, alright,” Fili mutters, kissing Kili’s elbow in retaliation. “Ready for the next one?”


	19. Chapter 19

 

“There used to be those cakes,” Kili says, his eyes trained on a small pair of cockle shells he’s fished out of Fili’s collection. “They were only simple shortcakes, formed into shells, put together in pairs and then dipped in chocolate on one end. In between the two halves there was jam, or if I was particularly lucky, a bit of cream.”

Fili looks up in interest from where he’s getting the sandwiches they made out of their wrapping paper. Wordlessly, he passes one to Kili, but his One shakes his head no, so instead Fili attacks it himself.

“You’d carefully separate the shells,” Kili continues, “aiming for an even distribution of jam on either side, but it would almost never work. So you’d eat the side without the jam first, starting with the chocolate, then the side _with_ the jam, again, chocolate end first, by which point of course you felt mildly nauseous from all the sugar, but you kept going anyway.”

Fili takes in the dark eyes lost somewhere in the past and feels a swell of protectiveness, but also curiosity. He thinks he vaguely remembers the type of cakes Kili is describing - _Viennese_ perhaps - but he doesn’t think he’s ever had them.

“They used to sell them at the entrance our local beach when I was little. Well, I say ‘ _local_ ’, but it was more like 3 hours’ drive one way, which is all I ever remembered, because I’d be completely out of it on the way back, every time.”

Fili grins. Yes, he can see how that might have been the case.

“Anyway, it was just this guy, he must have been retired, probably local, with his little stand full of shell cakes, just trying to make a couple extra bucks on the side. So every time we went to the beach I’d have the cake. It was the rules.”

Kili leans in and shamelessly steals a bite of Fili’s sandwich, then proceeds to chew thoughtfully.

“How old were you at the time?” Fili asks, using the momentary distraction.

Kili ponders this for a moment. “Probably around seven.”

Fili nods, his mind conjuring up an image of a dark mop of hair in permanent disarray, fierce eyes and scraped knees.

“And then one day, he just wasn’t there,” his One picks up again. “I don’t know if he was ill, went away, gave up on making his cakes… I never did figure out what happened to him. The point was: I didn’t have my cake. Obviously, I threw a tantrum.”

“Obviously.”

“So in an attempt to stop the wailing, after bribing with ice cream didn’t work, my dad promised that we’d come back the next weekend and I could have _two_ cakes then. That finally did it, and I stomped off to sulk at the beach proper.”

Fili takes a swig from his water bottle, watching his One.

“Except the next weekend the Great Silence happened,” Kili says in a carefully controlled voice, his eyes trained somewhere on the horizon. “So we didn’t get to go. Soon the roads were closed, then the military moved in and so on. Things at home turned… tense. Mom lost her voice overnight, dad didn’t. They used to argue a lot and she’d lash out sometimes, banging whatever she had to hand, just to make some noise. This was before any of the basic coping strategies were developed, you understand.”

“Must have been awful,” Fili murmurs quietly, his attention entirely on Kili now. “Neither of you is really built to take things lying down.”

“No, we’re not,” Kili agrees. “I didn’t understand any of it back then. I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t sad or even angry. I just – I think I expected the normal life to resume; every day I’d wake up and hope that mum would say something to me that day. As if it was all an elaborate hoax. Besides, we were supposed to go to the beach again, so I could have my cake.” He shakes his head incredulously and hides for a moment behind his hair.

Fili quietly moves in to take Kili’s hand, and stroke the top of his pam with his thumb.

It would be oh so easy to assume that Kili is indestructible, with his apparently endless supply of cheerful energy and his ability to bring out the best in the people he touches. But he doubts himself too, and worries about all those people he’s allowed way too close, and sometimes he simply gets hurt.

The difference between them is that while Fili carefully picks what to share and when to lean on Kili, for most of the time trying to be strong, working through his battles alone, Kili doesn’t feel the need to keep any of it to himself; he simply forgets, after so many years alone, that he can expect Fili’s support.

“So the whole world was going to hell around us,” Kili picks up once more, his eyes softening a little when they find Fili’s face, “but try to explain that to a seven-year-old. To a seven-year-old a promise of cake from a parent is as good as a blood pact. In the end we never did go to the beach again and dad moved out a couple of months later. And I had this sense of betrayal… It just coloured the whole thing for me, like paint spreading on wet paper. It’s not my main memory of that time, it’s not even that important. I just remembered it when I saw your shell. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this -”

“You know, a seven-year-old-me would have felt betrayed too. I don’t think that’s something that warrants guilt; children perceive the world differently and they make sense of it in their own way,” Fili tells him gently and welcomes Kili’s weight when he leans in against his shoulder, passing the little shell back to Fili.

He wraps his arm around Kili’s shoulders and considers - he’s not one for meaningless re-assurances, especially not when it comes to the people he loves.

“I think,” Fili says eventually, “that the greatest tragedy of the Great Silence wasn’t the fact that all those people lost their voice; it was the fact that the Great Silence forced them to be honest with themselves and others.”

“But you –“

“But me. If I look back, it wasn’t that I couldn’t communicate any more that broke me; it was not being able to cope with it, or even _not wanting_ to cope with it. And then my parents were gone and I did it all over again, making everything a thousand times worse. I think a lot of people reacted in the same way, and that set them on a self-destruction course, only I was perhaps too stubborn for that. It becomes somewhat simpler when you stop thinking about what you’re going to do with your future and start wondering where your next meal is coming from.”

Kili looks at him quietly with sad, dark eyes and then kisses the top of his shoulder. He’s not one for meaningless re-assurances either. He’s usually not one for words at all. Instead he’s all about the physical, sometimes forceful closeness, the actions he takes, and the sheer strength and optimism he radiates at such times, as if he could weather anything.

“It hasn’t stopped you loving your father though, has it?” Fili asks carefully.

“No. It’s not… um. It’s complicated. But he’s still my dad.”

Fili nods and gives him a quiet little smile, before kissing the top of his head. He doesn’t know of anything that might remove someone from Kili’s heart once he’s put them there.

“See? You’re brave like that,” he tells him. “And strong, and sometimes, when you’re not careful, you’re wise as well. You’ve coped with this, Kili. It will always be a little bit sad, a little bit tender, but you’ll be okay.”

Kili only nods thoughtfully, and Fili lets him keep his silence, moving instead to split their last sandwich in two and pass half of it to Kili. He knows his One is okay again when the food offer is accepted this time.

For a time they eat quietly, sharing space and companionship.

And then a thought occurs to Fili.

“Kili?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you recognise those cakes? If we were to look for recipes…”

Brown eyes catch blue, slowly lighting up with delight and Fili’s heart swells with simple, stupid happiness.

“You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I think I would.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thank you to all those who commented, especially those who have faithfully done so on every chapter - you guys kept me going. I am currently working on other stories, so watch this space! (It is possible to subscribe to a person - did you folks know that?)

 

When Fili comes out of the water, Kili is asleep on his towel, completely unperturbed by the glare of the afternoon sun.

Kili does this sort of thing often – just uses up all his restless energy in one go, before near-enough collapsing where he stands. Fili has been there to catch him at such times often enough to know the signs well.

He will nap and then he’ll want Fili, his camera and sometimes bed or food – in that order – before he’s back to his usual, cheerful self.

Fili lowers himself down to his towel, sits cross-legged opposite his One and wrings his hair out as best as he can, to stop it dripping down his back.

And then he simply watches for a while, part because the need to keep Kili safe dictates so, part because he can, and part because he never does seem to be finished falling in love.

Just at that moment Fili’s love lives in and among small things: the way Kili’s hair curls around his ear and seemingly perpetually attacks his face, the way his fingers seem to protect something hidden in his grasp even in his sleep, the way he’s stretched out beyond his towel and somewhat to the side, the same way a lazy cat might be.

It’s peaceful like this; nice. It’s the quiet little happiness which regularly makes Fili inhale more and more, until he feels like his lungs are full of nothing but Kili, to the point where he forgets what it used to be like without him.

Fili slips down to stretch out on his side, because he sees no reason why Kili should be the only one comfortable and because somehow, being level with him seems more intimate. He’s distracted enough that he doesn’t notice what else lies on his towel, until he pulls out his white t-shirt from under his ribs.

He peers at Kili’s reddened shoulders; there’s no reason why he should be any more burnt than he already is.

Carefully, ever so carefully Fili stretches the soft cotton over Kili’s back, tugging the edges as far as his arms, but is forced to rest his hand over the top of it, when the light breeze threatens to undo his diligent efforts and flick the t-shirt right off.

It’s fine. Fili didn’t need that hand anyway. He can rest without it.

It only takes a moment for Kili to nuzzle his nose into the edge of the fabric and take a deep breath.

Fili watches him blink himself awake slowly, then smile at Fili, then squint against the sun in his eyes.

He’s gorgeous like this: all loose, long limbs, windswept hair, broad, kissable lips. He displays his love, his trust, his contentment freely, telegraphs it all at Fili in a sweeping wave of adoration, which pours, unstoppable, right into Fili’s lungs with the next breath he draws.

If they were in bed, Fili would crack, like he always does, and pull him close, kiss him more awake and perhaps let himself be taken hostage by greedy arms and clingy legs.

But out here…

For a while they just watch each other. There’s no need for words – they’re both good, so very good at simply _being_ around each other, enjoying their company for what it is.

And then Kili tries to move closer, having found his Fili within easy reach.

“It’s too hot for cuddles,” Fili warns him, before his One can roll over on top of him, sand and all. “You’ll want off within seconds.”

Kili huffs, but doesn’t argue, settling back down and reaching out a hand instead.

He strokes Fili’s cheek with his thumb first, then traces his fingertips into Fili’s beard, smiles - _you’d have an interesting tan line on your face, if you ever shaved your beard off_ \- he doesn’t say, doesn’t need to, and then eventually settles with his palm curled around Fili’s pulse point.

It should feel like appropriation perhaps, but instead it just feels like belonging, and Fili easily allows him this newly-gained ground.

“You look happy,” Kili murmurs, a ’propos of nothing and everything all at once, his eyes sliding closed once more.

“I _am_ happy,” Fili agrees. “I like it here. I’d say it’s my favourite beach, but I haven’t been to all that many, so we may have to find a couple more, just to compare. It’s one of my favourite days with you so far.”

“And you haven’t been writing in your journal since we got here. I got you out of your head.” Kili’s grin is decidedly triumphant, even if his eyes remain closed.

“Kili, you’re an expert in getting me out of my head. You move in yourself instead, with all your… you-ness.”

“My job?”

“Yes,” Fili sighs, but it’s a rather cheerful sigh. “Your job,” he confirms and leans in as quietly as he can to cover the distance and stealthily kiss some of that smugness off Kili’s face.

He’s only part successful in his plan, because Kili seems to expect kisses at all times like they’re his birth right, but his expression does turn from smug to just pleased, so Fili counts it as his victory nevertheless.

Then he peers down to assess just how much sand he’s covered himself in as a result of his little operation - _too_ much, he’s slathered, will need another dip to wash it all off – but Kili promptly decides that it’s a grave mistake on his part to separate himself from Kili’s lips.

Another kiss and Fili has no choice, draws even more Kili into his lungs, feels it spread across his system and thinks that if the little shit was a siren, Fili would drown and drown and drown in his song willingly.

“Oh, by the way,” Kili whispers when they’re all kissed out and Fili feels all warmed through from the inside and somewhat dazed, while Kili’s dark eyes watch him like they’ve won the war and taken prisoners. “I was holding onto this shell, to give to you. I wasn’t sure if you had a purple one like that yet.”

It’s purely a coincidence that in the palm of Kili’s hand, cradled by his fingers, the shell sits upside down, exposing its beautiful markings along the inside. It looks… more like tissue than a shell, like it should be contracting and expanding, filled with blood and muscles giving it the faint fleshy colours, like the perfect groves along its edges have some biological function.

To Fili it looks like lungs – a little symbol of his own addiction, because he keeps having to dive down for yet another deep kiss of air.

But that’s okay. He’s allowed to have that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The incredible Adventures of Captain Shelley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15356757) by [islandkate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandkate/pseuds/islandkate), [Lakritzwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakritzwolf/pseuds/Lakritzwolf)




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